Anubhav Mittal appears to assure staffers, investors that police crackdown is a "bad phase".
As the police swooped down on his office in Noida near Delhi on Wednesday and told the world they had busted a 3,700 crore online scam based on social media 'likes', Anubhav Mittal whispered into a mobile phone camera, "We will be back again. We will rock the world."
In the video - one of the many that have emerged since the arrest of the Ablaze Info Solutions Limited founder - Anubhav Mittal appears to assure key staffers and investors that the police crackdown is a "bad phase" that is actually an opportunity. For instant fame.
"This opportunity has, in one day, made us famous in entire country. So keep believing in me and be with me," says the 26-year-old, who grew up in Uttar Pradesh's Pilkhuwa town once famous for its Khadi sector. NDTV cannot verify authenticity of the videos. The police said they were not focusing on the video which, they thought, was probably recorded on the sly while the man was being taken to court on February 2 a day
after his arrest.
Mittal was arrested for allegedly swindling 7 lakh people in the online scam that made him a millionaire in just two years.
It was how, police say, the ambitious engineering graduate from a private college in Ghaziabad managed to ride big cars, throw flashy parties that were sometimes attended by Bollywood stars. "He was even planning to take 250 of his 'investors' for a promotional trip to Australia," a senior police officer told NDTV.
Mittal set up his first business in 2010 but he made just enough to get by. And he wanted to be rich. In 2015, he took the plunge and set up www.socialtrade.biz portal. Investors had to invest in multiples of Rs 5750 and got web links as text messages on their phone. For each 'like' on social media or link that they clicked on, they would get Rs 5.
Noida police calls it a ponzi scam. When the initial investors got the returns, they got others to invest too and were paid a share.
But the ones who invested later - they make up for the bulk of investors - got almost negligible or no returns. "We have got to know of one person who added 10,000 people. So we are looking to book some of them (early investors who worked as promoters) for conspiracy as well," says Amit Pathak, the STF's Senior Superintendent of Police.
The police concede they are yet to track down where the company has invested most of the money. It claims to have detected 534 crores in 12 bank accounts. A Special Investigation Team has been set up to trace the rest of the money and untangle the web of online transactions.
The Noida police has set up an email id calling for complaints. In just one day, they have received 1,600 complaints from 'investors' - some all the way from Nigeria and Muscat.
Closer home, sixty kilometres from the national capital, in Krishanganj area of Pilkhuwa, a crowd has gathered around a small, two-storey building. The original inmates of the house, Mr Mittal's parents, are not at home. But the neighbours rally around for support.
One of them was Pankaj Rathi. "Everything is online. There is no hard cash. Government is also getting tax," says Rathi, wondering what the fuss was about.
Another, a student, Divyansh Kumar, recalls how "the likes business" gave him the chance to earn money. "I lost one year after 12th. But Anubhav bhaiyya gave me a job and I started getting some people into the likes business," he says. Kumar had also roped in his father who invested Rs 57,500 in December and had received Rs 15,000 since then.
Most neighbours, however, don't recall seeing much of Mittal. After he started out on his own in 2010, Mittal would rarely visit his Pilkhuwa home. His father, who runs an electronics goods shop in the locality, was initially a director in the company. He stepped down in March 2016, reportedly after differences with his son.
But his home town isn't the only place where Mittal has received support. There have been protests against his arrest outside the company's Noida office. Multiple pages have come up in his support on social media including Facebook as well.